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Top Trump Health Officials Slam Obamacare, Medicare for All

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In a speech Thursday morning at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar criticized the Affordable Care Act and said that the Trump administration was committed to “building markets and competition, restoring price signals and incentives, and empowering consumers through choice, rather than having government decide what is best for the individual.”

Here’s some of what Azar said:

“When things don’t work the way they should, when we ask why the rest of our economy is fully digitized when healthcare isn’t, when we wonder why healthcare lacks the dynamism and consumerism of the rest of the economy, I look for culprits. So very often, the culprit is government action, sometimes from decades or even a century ago.”

“The only factor keeping the individual market alive is the tens of billions of dollars of subsidies supplied directly to insurers each year. The fundamental flaw of the ACA is that it narrowed the competition for insurance options and laid down heavy-handed controls on the prices that could be charged.”

Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion made the program “a free source of coverage for 15 million new able-bodied adults, including many without any children. In fact, the ACA offers more generous support for states to insure these populations, currently covering more than 90 percent of their costs, than it does for traditional Medicaid populations. Supporting legislation to undo those perverse incentives is a priority for this administration. But in the meantime, we want to rethink how Medicaid serves able-bodied, working-age adults, which is why we have encouraged states to consider work and community engagement requirements for these populations.”

Azar’s comments come a day after another top Trump administration health care official, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma, also criticized the Affordable Care Act. “It wasn’t working when we came into office and it continues not to work,” she said. “The program is not designed to be successful.”

Verma also took a swipe at the idea of “Medicare for all,” which has become increasingly popular with Democrats. Verma said the idea would endanger Medicare’s focus on seniors. “We don’t want to divert the purpose and focus away from our seniors,” she said. “In essence, Medicare for all would become Medicare for none.”

Verma also said she didn’t think a single-payer system would work. “By choosing a socialized system, you are giving the government complete control over the decisions pertaining to your care or whether you receive care at all. It would be the furthest thing from patient-centric care,” she said in her speech. During a question-and-answer session afterwards, she added that analyses have shown a single-payer system to be unaffordable, Kaiser Health News reported. “It doesn’t make sense for us to waste time on something that’s not going to work,” Verma said.

In response, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), said: “It's extremely concerning that the person charged with administering Medicare would rather throw 32 million Americans off of health insurance than join every major nation and guarantee health care as a fundamental right.”

In a speech Thursday morning at the conservative Heritage Foundation, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar criticized the Affordable Care Act and said that the Trump administration was committed to “building markets and competition, restoring price signals and incentives, and empowering consumers through choice, rather than having government decide what is best for the individual.”

Here’s some of what Azar said:

“When things don’t work the way they should, when we ask why the rest of our economy is fully digitized when healthcare isn’t, when we wonder why healthcare lacks the dynamism and consumerism of the rest of the economy, I look for culprits. So very often, the culprit is government action, sometimes from decades or even a century ago.”

“The only factor keeping the individual market alive is the tens of billions of dollars of subsidies supplied directly to insurers each year. The fundamental flaw of the ACA is that it narrowed the competition for insurance options and laid down heavy-handed controls on the prices that could be charged.”

Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion made the program “a free source of coverage for 15 million new able-bodied adults, including many without any children. In fact, the ACA offers more generous support for states to insure these populations, currently covering more than 90 percent of their costs, than it does for traditional Medicaid populations. Supporting legislation to undo those perverse incentives is a priority for this administration. But in the meantime, we want to rethink how Medicaid serves able-bodied, working-age adults, which is why we have encouraged states to consider work and community engagement requirements for these populations.”

Azar’s comments come a day after another top Trump administration health care official, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma, also criticized the Affordable Care Act. “It wasn’t working when we came into office and it continues not to work,” she said. “The program is not designed to be successful.”

Verma also took a swipe at the idea of “Medicare for all,” which has become increasingly popular with Democrats. Verma said the idea would endanger Medicare’s focus on seniors. “We don’t want to divert the purpose and focus away from our seniors,” she said. “In essence, Medicare for all would become Medicare for none.”

Verma also said she didn’t think a single-payer system would work. “By choosing a socialized system, you are giving the government complete control over the decisions pertaining to your care or whether you receive care at all. It would be the furthest thing from patient-centric care,” she said in her speech. During a question-and-answer session afterwards, she added that analyses have shown a single-payer system to be unaffordable, Kaiser Health News reported. “It doesn’t make sense for us to waste time on something that’s not going to work,” Verma said.

In response, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), said: “It's extremely concerning that the person charged with administering Medicare would rather throw 32 million Americans off of health insurance than join every major nation and guarantee health care as a fundamental right.”

As editor in chief, Yuval Rosenberg oversees all aspects of The Fiscal Times' website and email newsletter. His writing has appeared in publications including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, CNNMoney.com, Fast Company, Fortune, Newsweek, Money and Time.